Each story 
expresses an emotional climate – that is, after completing it the reader might say, “The writer seemed very angry” or “The writer presented a depressing view of the world.” Tone is the emotion the author uses to approach the story’s theme.
Tone helps engage the reader in the story. You can have an action-packed plot and an intriguing protagonist, but if the story lacks the appropriate tone, you’ll undercut your narrative and character arcs. Often the way an author writes is enough alone to grab readers’ attention. In addition, tone gives subtle but important clues about how the reader should interpret the characters and the story’s message. Think of tone as you would the quality of someone’s voice when speaking aloud; how fast the person talks, whether they’re whispering or shouting deeply affect how you understand what they’re saying. Write a life-or-death scene as if it were an comparison and contrast school essay, however, and you’ve struck the wrong tone and will lose the reader.
You want to establish your story’s tone with the very first word of your story. Starting with one tone and then switching to another often is jarring and confusing to the reader.
Creating tone involves a complex array of techniques that like include diction, pacing and color.
Diction
The vocabulary choices and ways those words are arranged in sentences to create a sense of style is known as diction.
Consider the following passage:
Most of the greenery leading to the town center was nothing more than blackened stubble. Calandra had seen the fireblight work its destruction elsewhere; the blight always began with crimson splotches across the stem until the whole plant turned that color. For days in the sunlight the crops would shimmer red, as if ablaze, as the blight rotted its host. It disintegrated plants from the inside out, working its way up the cells that delivered nutrients to the fruit. When the redness disappeared, the plant collapsed upon itself, nothing more than a burned out shell, leaving only a stench that bit like acrid smoke.
Notice how certain words evoke a sense of destruction: nothing more than blackened stubble; the crops would shimmer red, as if ablaze; rotted; collapsed upon itself, nothing more than a burned out shell; a stench that bit like acrid smoke. The sentences themselves follow the narrative arc of a forest fire – first isolated blazes that rise along the tree trunks, then the entire tree in flames, and once the fire burns out, nothing left but blackened husks of trees and the odor of smoke.
In fewer than 125 words, we have a good idea of what the town’s destroyed green belt looks like, but even more than that we are moved at a gut level and find ourselves reeling at the totality of the destruction.
Pacing
Pacing is the timing by which the major events in the plot unfold and in which the big scenes are shown. The “better” the story, then the better that the author handled the pacing.
Every story has a different pace. Those that are more introspective tend to move at a slower pace while those that are action-packed tend to be fast. Because of this, all stories run on a story clock. This is a rate at which the narrator describes the action. As with the wider universe, there is no objective clock. A true sign of writing craftsmanship is when an author sets the story clock winding at the right pace for his tale.
Consider this passage, which makes good use of the story clock:
My father sat at the bar rail next to Rory Everard and his three adult sons. “Rory,” my father said, “I haven’t seen you since the Wakeley Auction last spring.” Then he looked at each of Mr. Everard’s sons and nodded as saying their names: “Jeff. Craig. Gary.”
They nodded back nervously. An awkward silence fell between them.
“Rory, how are you doing?” my father said.
Mr. Everard eyed my father. “I’ll get by, Bill.”
My attention focused entirely on my father. He nonchalantly pulled a ten from his wallet, motioned at Mr. Everard’s beer. The bartender glanced uncomfortably at him, brought over a bottle.
“In town for parts, Bill?” Mr. Everard said with deliberateness.
“Needed refreshment.”
“Just stopped in for a beer then?”
“‘A’ beer? In a hurry to see me go?”
“Just wanted to know what brings you in here.”
My father gave Mr. Everard a long stare. “Is there some problem, Rory?”
Mr. Everard shook his head. “Hired man outside?”
“Should he be?”
“If he is, that’d probably be best for him.”
My father sat straight up. “If you’ve got something to say, Rory, say it.”
Mr. Everard cleared his throat, fingered the perspiration off his beer’s rim. “Well, Bill — that hired man of yours … Dick Cassidy is saying that boy had his way with his daughter.”
My father rose from his bar stool, pulled his money from the rail.
Good pacing always involves compression and expansion of time; in “real time,” events don't unfold at the same rate as they do in a story. For example, an airplane flight from New York to London in real time might take a few hours, but in the story it’s handled in a phrase that takes a couple of seconds to read. Usually the authors speeds up or slows down the action to match the emotions he wants the reader to have.
Another aspect of good pacing is travel time. Characters don't change their personalities or their minds about important decisions overnight. A character must “travel” a certain emotional distance to arrive at such changes. The author's wording and dramatic action must mirror that pace.
Color
Even if your story offers a lot of dramatic tension and the sentences are tightly constructed, it still can feel a bit monochrome or colorless. When that occurs, the writing probably is not particularly vivid. Rather than read like a piece of fiction, the story instead will feel like a work of dry news reporting.
Consider this fairly colorless passage:
Kneeling before the car, Carl Steinar thought his wife appeared to be sleeping, but he knew that she’d simply lost too much blood. A tear fell from his eyes. In a single moment, every memory of their few short years with one another surfaced: the first night together; of how she loved Nebraska; of her hands as they caressed his neck; of their two boys. He stumbled back, tried to hold back the weeping.
The piece lacks several elements that could make it more vibrant:
• Descriptions – To create a sense of the world where your story occurs, you’ll want to describe the spatial setting, the time, and the characters. Not doing this is akin to watching a play without any scenery and the characters wearing sheets rather than costumes.
• Imagery – Good fiction writing appeals to the readers’ various senses – sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. Since people experience the world through their five senses, including them in a story helps the reader vicariously experience the fictional world.
• Symbolism – Descriptions and imagery deliver additional levels of meaning by being presented as similes, metaphors or other figurative language. Such connotations can carry great emotional weight.
By using these techniques, the colorless passage could be rewritten as:
Kneeling before the car, all he could see was crimson blood. His wife appeared to be asleep, but he knew that crumpled body, jammed between the driver’s seat and projecting steering wheel, had simply lost too much vital fluid for it to be true. Then a mist of lavender netting covered her, as if she was a bride about to wake, and Carl Steinar realized he was viewing Gwen through his tears. In a single moment, every memory of their few short years with one another surfaced: the first night together; of how she loved Nebraska’s yellow sky and the wind’s glorious cry, of her soothing hands as she caressed his neck; of their two little boys. He stumbled back, lay fetal position in the middle of the road, and shaking his head desperately tried to hold back the weeping.
This version of the passage is more vibrant because it actually describes the scene. For example, the reader can better visualize the car wreck through the description of his wife’s body and of where Carl Steinar lays in the roadway. The passage also makes much better use of imagery. We have an array of colors in the scene, such as the crimson blood, Nebraska’s yellow sky, the lavender netting that is Carl’s tears. There also is an appeal to senses beyond sight, specifically touch through a description of the wife’s smooth hands caressing his neck, and of sound via the wind’s glorious cry. Finally, the passage even makes use of symbolism with the simile as if she were a bride about to wake, which emotes Carl’s feelings toward her and his sense of loss.
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